Chapter Twenty-Four
Jacob
Getting Abigail out of Winters House and into Shaded Glenn turned out to be less complicated than I thought. Griffen picked us up in a generic white van with a cleaning service logo on the side.
He drove through the city long enough for the team following us to determine we'd lost any tails before picking up his speed and driving to Shaded Glenn.
A combination of assisted living and twenty-four-hour nursing care, Shaded Glenn was located on several attractively landscaped acres north of the city.
The buildings were laid out in a traditional Georgian-style red brick, with black shutters and white columns. At night, even the back entrances were well-lit. We passed the wide gated drive of the main entry and turned the corner to the narrower but still gated service entry.
Cooper had sent two men ahead to check over the facility and supervise our entry and exit. As far as any threat from Big John went, the whole operation was clean and simple.
I wish the rest of it had been as easy. Abigail was under too much strain, tension coiled inside her like an overwound watch.
The confrontation in Cooper's office earlier in the afternoon hadn't helped.
I was still ready to fucking kill Evers. It wasn't just that he'd tried to take her away from me. But Evers didn't even want her, not the way I did.
The way he'd thrown our arrangement in her face, seeing how humiliated she'd been—just thinking about it made me sick with anger.
And whose fault is that? My conscience prodded. Evers’s, or yours?
I was really starting to hate my conscience. I refused to regret my arrangement with Abigail. Offering safety for Abigail and her mother in exchange for Abigail in my bed was not my most noble moment.
Neither of us had been thinking clearly when she'd shown up in my office. She'd been scared, and I'd been greedy. I could admit that, but it wasn't any of Evers's fucking business, and if he cared so much about Abigail, he wouldn't have made her feel like shit in front of everyone.
Blaming Evers was so much simpler than dwelling on what I could've done to make the situation easier. I was taking care of Abigail, wasn't I?
I'd given her everything she needed. The best sex of her life—the way she lit up for me, I knew she'd never had better—free reign to buy whatever she wanted, I was taking care of her mother, I'd given her a spectacular place to live, and I was even helping her figure out college.
What fucking more did everybody want from me?
Before my conscience could pipe up again, I dragged my attention back to the situation at hand. It was no wonder my mind had wandered.
As nice as Shaded Glenn was, with its hyper-attentive staff and beautiful facilities, this was not a happy place. The people here were not going home. And in Mrs. Wainwright's building, most of them were nearing the end.
I hadn't known Anne Louise Wainwright before she fell ill. Seeing her lying in the bed, eyes closed, a brightly patterned but clearly worn hand-stitched quilt tucked carefully around her frail body, it was hard to accept that she was in her late fifties.
She looked at least a decade older, but still beautiful, with the same thick, dark hair as Abigail, the same cheekbones, and the same nose.
I was looking at a vision of Abigail twenty-five years from now, and she would still be just as beautiful as she was today.
At the same time, the most basic part of my soul revolted at the sight of Mrs. Wainwright in that bed, looking so much like her daughter, the beep of machines a soundtrack to her slowly declining health.
I never wanted to see Abigail like this. Never. I was watching the end of a life, come far too soon, and seeing it happen to the image of Abigail made me sick.
I led Abigail to a chair that had been placed beside her mother's bed. She sat, her eyes glued to her mother, and took her mother's hand, silent tears streaming down her face. I stood behind her, rubbing the back of her neck, at a loss for what else I could do.
I would fix anything for Abigail. Right any wrong. Save her from any threat. It was killing me that the only thing I could do now was write a check.
The most wrenching pain she'd ever experienced, the loss she feared more than any other, and I was helpless before it.
Eventually, I stepped out in the hall to check in with Cooper and make some calls. We weren't going anywhere. Now that Abigail was with her mother after so long apart, I couldn't drag her home until she was ready.
It was a long night.
We stayed until Abigail started nodding off. When she was asleep, I gently untangled her fingers from her mother's and lifted her from the chair. Her eyes fluttered open.
I said, "It's time to go home, sweetheart. Okay?"
She registered what I was saying and her eyes filled with tears, but she nodded her head against my chest and whispered back, "Okay." She took a breath to steady herself. "I can walk. Put me down, please."
I didn't want to let her go, but I did as she asked. My arm around her shoulders, I held her tight to my side as we waited just inside the exit door for the all clear to leave. The same white van we'd arrived in was waiting.
Pearly dawn light gave the small parking lot an otherworldly look. In the still, quiet air, I wanted to hold my breath. The only sounds were the scuffle of our feet on the pavement and the low murmur of the Sinclair Security team talking through almost invisible microphones.
I was braced for an attack that never came. I helped Abigail into the van and climbed in beside her. The driver and another guard jumped in, waited until we finished fastening our seat belts, and took off.
Abigail's eyes started to close as we headed down the long, narrow drive back to the main road. She looked so lost, sitting on the other side of the bench seat.
I reached out and took her hand in mine, and the startled expression on her face told me she didn't expect comfort from my direction.
Was I doing such a bad job at taking care of her? I thought not, but after the confrontation with Evers and her hesitance as she held my hand, I had to wonder if my take on this whole situation was off.
I hated being wrong, probably because I had so little practice with it. Not being arrogant, it's just the truth. Still, taking in the defeated, anguished expression on Abigail's face, I had to wonder if this might be one of those very rare times I was completely fucking up.
The squeal of tires broke into my thoughts. I barely had time to straighten and look out the front windshield before metal crunched and the van spun sideways, throwing us hard to the left.
I heard the crack of Abigail's head against the side of the van, gunshots, then the pounding of feet on pavement, muffled through the metal of the van.
"Don't move," the driver of the van said, sounding disturbingly calm considering the fact that we were now stopped in the middle of the road, straddling both lanes, and apparently under attack.
Both he and the other guard jumped from the van, slamming the doors behind them. I heard the beep of a lock, then nothing.
I'd never imagined I'd wish for Cooper's commando skills. I could shoot a gun, and I was fit, but I was not stupid enough to think that I had any option other than to stay exactly where I was and wait for them to sort this out.
Abigail's hand had been torn from mine when we'd been hit. I found it on the seat beside me and grabbed it again, squeezing tightly.
"What just happened?" she asked, her voice thready and terrified. Her eyes were wide, and I caught the dark gleam of blood on her left temple in the early morning light suffusing the van, but it didn't seem to be flowing.
I didn't think she was badly hurt. I hoped she wasn't. Her left hand went to her seatbelt, and I said, "No. Leave your seatbelt on. I don't know if they have another vehicle, but I think we should stay strapped in until the Sinclair team tells us otherwise."
She blinked and said, "You're right. Of course, you're right." Lifting her hand, she briefly touched the side of her head, then stared at the stain of blood on her fingers. I loosened my tie and pulled it from my collar.
Handing it to her, I said, "Here. Use this."
She dropped my hand to take the tie, leaving my fingers cold and empty. Turning the silk tie over in her fingers, she said, "I'll ruin it."
"I don't care about the fucking tie, Abigail," I snapped, and I instantly regretted my tone as her face closed down and went politely neutral.
Most of the time, Abigail's dignified act turned me on, especially now that I knew how hot she was in bed. When she used it to put distance between us, it just pissed me off.
I opened my mouth to tell her to knock it off when my brain kicked into gear and reminded me that I was the one who'd put that look on her face in the first place, and if I wanted it gone, I might want to try not being such an asshole when she was scared and hurt.
Forcing myself to calm down, I said, "I don't care about the tie, sweetheart. You're bleeding, and it looks like it stopped, but it'll be easier to tell if you clean it up a little. Okay?"
She dropped her eyes and nodded. I pretended I didn't see the sheen of tears as she gingerly used my tie to dab the blood from her temple. It didn't take long before it was apparent the cut wasn't bad. It was still bleeding, but only a trickle.
Head wounds always bled a lot, so if this one was clotting already, it wasn't a big deal. Good to know, since it felt like we'd been sitting in the van for an hour. The road outside was quiet.
"Abigail," I started, not sure what I planned to say, when the distant rumble of an engine cut through the early morning quiet.
My stomach tightened as I realized I was hearing the approach of motorcycles. Another squeal of tires, less than a second before the grinding crash of metal on metal, and we were flung in the opposite direction.
Lightning crashed behind my eyelids, an explosion of pain in the side of my head. My hand was again torn from Abigail's.
Fuck.
They had reinforcements, and if the motorcycles weren't a coincidence, then the Raptors had gotten tired of waiting for Big John to make his move.
My vision flickered in and out for a few seconds before I was able to focus my eyes.
Everything clicked into frame at once—the cracks in the front windshield of the van, the figures moving outside, fighting. The frightened pitch in Abigail's voice as she said, "Jacob! Jacob, say something, please, Jacob."
"I'm okay," I assured her. My head was killing me, and the side of my face was warm and sticky. Keeping my head turned away from Abigail so she couldn't see, I lifted my right hand to touch my cheek.
My fingers came away red, my blood gleaming in the slowly brightening morning light.
Shit.
I grabbed my tie from where it lay abandoned on the seat between us and used it to mop up the blood on the side of my face.
"What do we do?" Abigail asked. I wished with everything I had inside me that I had an answer. Stupidly, I wasn't even carrying a gun.
"Hold tight," I said. "Cooper was prepared for an ambush. This van is bulletproof. The smartest thing we can do right now is stay put and wait for the Sinclair team to get us out of here."
Abigail nodded and reached her hand out for mine. I took it, squeezing tightly, trying to convey absolute confidence that everything would be all right. I mostly believed it would.
I wanted to pull her over to my side of the van and cradle her in my arms. I didn't like her being so far away when we were in danger.
It was instinctive, an urge in my gut and in my heart to protect her from any threat. But I had to be smart. Unbuckling her seatbelt when we had been hit twice would be lunacy.
I wouldn't endanger her to make myself feel better, so I settled for stroking my thumb over the back of her hand as we waited and hoped.
More gunshots. A squeal of tires. Through the cracked windshield, I saw a hulking black SUV, the kind most of the Sinclair team drove. It was joined by a second black SUV. The doors opened, and men with guns poured out.
No more shots were fired, and shouts bounced back and forth, the words indistinguishable through the closed doors of the van.
We both jumped when the driver's side door opened and the figure in black slid inside.
Cooper didn't spare the time to look at us. He just started the van, threw it into gear, and hit the gas, swerving and veering around the vehicles blocking our way.
He sideswiped two bikes but managed to get us clear of the mess in the road, and we took off, flying down the back road and turning on to another two-lane road. Cooper didn't relax until we'd put several miles between us and the scene of the ambush.
Meeting my eyes in the rearview mirror, he said, "You two okay?"
"Okay," Abigail said in a quiet, strained voice.
"We're okay," I confirmed. "A little banged up. We both hit our heads pretty hard."
"Bleeding?"
"Yes," I said. "I think Abigail's has stopped, and mine slowed down."
"I'm taking us to the hospital then," Cooper said. "The police will meet us there. Are you up to talking?"
"Yes," Abigail said. "But we didn't see much. It happened so fast, and we never got out of the van."
"Good, that makes it all easier," Cooper said.
"Just tell them what you know, answer their questions, and it'll be fine.
We need to get this on record. They already know you're the linchpin in a dispute between Big John and the Raptors.
Both of them had men there, and they didn't look like they were working together.
Since we don't know how this is going to play out, it makes sense to give the police everything they need up front. You haven't done anything wrong."
"It's fine," I said. "Just take us to the hospital so we can get this over with and get home."
"Just hang in there," Cooper said. "It should all be over soon."